1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an elastic lateral support with supporting wheel for children's bicycles.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With the attachment of lateral supporting wheels to children's bicycles, the children who cannot yet bicycle are given the opportunity to get used to the position of the body and to the movement while riding a bicycle. Customarily, however, the lateral supports are rigid. In that case it is overlooked that rigid lateral supports are not suitable either as an auxiliary means to teaching, not as a safety device for preventing dangerous falls. In this respect a bicycle equipped with two lateral supporting wheels is even inferior to a tricycle since the latter, while running over bumpy spots offers greater stability and does not suffer from the disadvantage that while passing over hollows and holes of the driving wheels suddenly spinning freely a distance from the ground. If the running plane of the supporting wheels is adjusted higher than that of the main wheels then the bicycle will travel now to the right and now to the left at an inclination and will always run on three wheels with a dangerously narrow wheel base. As a result the child rocks back and forth and assumes a very unhappy, laterally bent-over sitting position. Finally, the only advantage of rigid lateral supports as compared to a tricycle consists in that they can be removed whenever one tires of this emergency solution.
Elastic lateral supports in numerous embodiments are already known. Usually in that case a swivellably mounted arm has been known which carries a lateral supporting wheel combined with a helical or leaf spring, supported on the frame of the bicycle, which loads the arm in such a way that the supporting wheel is resiliently pressed against the ground, (see for example, German OS No. 2 064 412, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,391,982 and 2,450,979). All such constructions suffer from the disadvantage that they are expensive and subject to breakdowns because of the large number of relatively complicated parts and because of the necessity of having joints. For this reason they have not prevailed hitherto in practice.
Embodiments of elastic lateral supports are also known where the spring itself carries the supporting wheels instead of an articulately mounted arm (see U.S. Pat. No. 2,793,877 and British Pat. No. 2432 A.D. 1896). It is true, however, that in the case of these constructions a simplification of the supports has not been realized fully, because the springs are always firmly connected with several other parts which carry the supporting wheel or which are used for attachment to the bicycle frame or which form a complex system of springs. The known combined carrying and spring members are therefore relatively heavy, complicated in construction and expensive.